Texas camp where 27 girls died in devastating flood faces criminal inquiry that could include manslaughter charges

A Texas camp is under investigation for their inaction during a devastating flood last year that killed 27 girls. 

Camp Mystic faces a criminal probe that could include manslaughter, child abandonment and negligent homicide charges, court documents reveal.

The desperate search for answers comes as Brant Johnston, with the Texas Rangers, claimed in an affidavit that Camp Mystic had inadequate emergency plans. 

He also wrote that the camp failed to conduct emergency training and some cabins did not have enough adult counselors.

Unaware of monitored late-night flood warnings, the camp’s owners neglected to take precautions by moving children from low-lying cabins to safer ones, Johnston wrote. 

‘Young campers cannot reasonably be expected to independently recognize a rapidly developing, life-threatening hazard or to organize and execute an evacuation absent direction from an adequate number of adult supervisors,’ Johnston wrote.

He added that several people, including members of the Eastland family and other top camp officials, refused interviews.

‘Camp Mystic, LLC was aware of and consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk of death to the campers in their care,’ he concluded.

The 100-year-old girls camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Texas also wasn’t accredited when it became the site of the deadliest summer camp disaster in US history and was inundated by flood waters last July. 

The tragedy killed 27 girls and counselors as well as the camp’s father-figure and owner, Richard ‘Dick’ Eastland, 70, who died while trying to save the young girls. 

In the wake of the catastrophe, the camp was hit with a flurry of lawsuits from grieving families. The camp has denied liability saying the flood was an unforeseeable natural disaster.

Attorneys for the family of victim Cile Steward said in a written statement: ‘For more than a year, families of the 27 angels killed at Camp Mystic have fought, begged, and pleaded with the Eastland family for accountability and answers.

‘Instead, the Eastlands have held hostage the information and answers owed to parents who deserve, more than anyone, to know the details surrounding their daughters’ final moments.’ 

The Dallas-based father of one of Mystic’s young victims, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Daily Mail that if he could do just one thing differently in his entire life, ‘I’d have questioned whether Mystic had the people and policies sufficiently in place to keep her alive.’

‘I failed her,’ he added about his only daughter.

‘I’d like to tell people what I wish someone told us – that just because a camp has been around forever, just because it’s respected by people you consider respectable families doesn’t mean it’s going to keep your kid safe.’

One Camp Mystic counselor previously shared they did not have communication devices during the flood. 

Caroline Cutrona told CNN that while the owners and a few leaders had walkie talkies, most of them did not. She also indicated that they had not received evacuation training. 

Cutrona explained that Camp Mystic had a no-screen policy, and staff members are required to turn off their phones while working. She added that because of this policy, she did not receive the weather emergency alerts sent out.

The camp was a beloved summer destination and an institution for generations of families, who dropped off their girls at the sleepaway camp to ride horses, canoe, fish and attend Bible studies.

It did not reopen this year and has instead filed for bankruptcy reorganization.

The Camp Mystic catastrophe prompted a slew of reforms that have now put Texas on par with New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Michigan and California – the states that regulate summer camps most tightly.

Laws in those states make best-practice safety standards legally enforceable rather than just voluntary.